


Heals Some Wounds

by Masu_Trout



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character(s) of Color, Drabble Sequence, Gen, Healing, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25278349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Living forever means dying occasionally. Everyone gets used to it eventually—and everyone deals with it in their own way.(Or: five times someone from the guard died, and one time they all made it out.)
Relationships: Implied Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 208
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	Heals Some Wounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [labocat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/gifts).



_(Booker.)_

Some nights Booker dreams he's drowning. 

Over the past two centuries, he's nearly gotten used to it: gasping, saltwater in his lungs, rage and terror and unending agony. 

It doesn't happen often. Years apart, or sometimes decades—long enough that he almost starts to believe it might be over. That she might finally be free from the pain, and him with her.

And then one night he'll wake up choking on water that isn't in his lungs, and realize all over again that neither of them can escape.

(He doesn't tell Andy anymore. Some things only hurt her to know.)

* * *

_(Nicky.)_

Joe's facedown on the floor, body limp with death, skull wet with gore and shattered where the bullet went through it.

Nicky is at his side. And Joe's coming back, Nicky _knows_ he's coming back, but still he cradles him and pulls him close, muttering, " _Please_ , come back to me," in every language he knows and some he's forgotten. 

He only finds his breath when Joe wakes, sputtering, in his arms.

(They found immortality together. Does that mean they'll die together? Nicky hopes so, more than anything he hopes so, but if not—

If not, he hopes he goes first.)

* * *

_(Nile.)_

It's three in the morning in a shitty motel in the middle of Texas. Andy's asleep in an understuffed chair. Joe and Nicky are spooning in the lone bed.

Nile stands in the dingy bathroom, light flickering overhead, and presses her gun to her temple.

It wouldn't kill her. She took a dozen bullets on today's mission, shrugged them off like they were made of foam. But it scares her, still, to look in the mirror and see the muzzle pressed to her temple.

She needs that fear. For as long as she possibly can, she wants to keep it.

* * *

_(Quynh.)_

Forty-three seconds. She knows the count. It's the only thing she knows anymore.

She used to be grateful for it, every time she came back. Forty-three seconds to beat at the walls of her prison. To scream defiance, scream for the one she knew would be coming to rescue her. Forty-three seconds of hope.

Now—

She wakes, salt stinging her eyes, lungs already full of water, thrashing, sobbing, begging for the end. Forty-three seconds, forty-two, forty-one...

Blackness swims to meet her as she hits zero. A moment's hope, a moment's peace, and—

She wakes, thrashing and screaming. _Forty-three seconds_.

Again.

* * *

_(Joe.)_

Joe's not used to dying alone. He can't say he's a fan.

A millenia, almost, and he can count the times he's been apart from Nicky on one hand. But this mission needs them spread out through the city; when gunmen burst down his door and put two between his eyes, his last thought is _Please, don't let this be it._

He wakes, covered in blood. Crawls to his feet, grabs his knife, finishes the job. Easy.

And if he sleeps restlessly that night, tossing and turning and covered in cold sweat, Nicky doesn't complain. 

Nicky understands. He always does.

* * *

_(Andy.)_

Andy's got a fucking headache. 

Not from a hit she took during that last fight, either. It's just mortality, slow and inexorable, creeping up in ways she'd long ago forgotten to expect. 

She hasn't had a headache in seven thousand years. She'd forgotten just how goddamn awful it feels. 

Nile grins as she tosses her a cold compress. Andy catches it, presses it to her forehead, and glares back.

"How's that hangover treating you, huh?"

Andy groans. " _God_. Kill me already."

"Like hell are you dying yet," Nile tells her. She's smiling, but they both know how serious she is.


End file.
